Tips
In-game behavior The game is designed by the developers to trigger all kind of emotions (because under strong emotions players are more willing to pay real money for in-game benefits), so do not take critical decisions under heavy emotions. To understand better how developers and officials think, here you have a quote from a presentation held at Virtual Goods Summit 2009 by Zhan Ye (President of GameVision and a Strategic Investment Consultant for Giant Interactive Group): "How F2P and Micro-transaction work: the strategy is to use 'free-to-play' to attract a lot of gamers to the game in the beginning. Keep them playing the game as long as possible. As they spend more time in the game, they become attached to it. The time they spent playing the game, the character and equipment they acquired in the game, the friends they made in the game. All these become an investment that they cannot easily give up. Try to offer them virtual items and services that can give them: fame and social status in the virtual world, convenience fashion advantages over other gamers (in PvP mode). And many other things. They will pay!" Sources: # Micro Transaction, Gambling Features And Virtual Currency In Chinese Online Games # What Us Game Developers Need To Know About Free To Play In China * do not bring with you in the game your real life problems and don't take with you, in the real life, your in-game problems * players come from all over the world, they have different ages, genders, races, languages, cultures, religions, histories, with economical, social and political differences and what seems perfectly normal in one country may be totally wrong in other; it's just a game, not a place to debate - or even worse, to argue - about real live values, toughs, opinions and ideas * Netiquette is recommended to be followed for the in-game behavior and relationships * gaming etiquette is something very real and diverse. It is found in any title with players existing together and yet despite its rules being unwritten, it serves as a powerful tool in shaping a player’s experience with others. There will always be those who take exception to the rules; whilst some of them can be made to conform away from the rule-breaking, there will forever exist the griefers, the bulliers, rude people and the sore losers to disrupt things * remember always that guilds and alliances raise and fall, friends may come and leave and the most of players play the game for themselves, having own (selfish sometimes) goals and objectives. Do not involve yourself too much, this will help you a lot to not become disappointed later * the server is designed as a PvP server, so killing other players is allowed in any map and for any reason. Follow guild rules and with the help of friends and guild mates any problem can be solved. Don't expect any game official to interfere in a PvP problem in a PvP server * play smart: avoid ongoing wars areas, the risk to be catch in a cross-fire is very high. There's a large variety of events and maps, just choose another place or anything else to do for a while * the common sense rules shall be enough to have a great game-play experience Character building * find a group of friends with same game-play time and party with them for any event as much as possible - this is the key for fast leveling. Avoid "strangers" for complex events like Malefic Lords, Marvels' Estate or Swallow's Dock - there's a huge risk to fail the event * to limit the time spent by young people in online games, the laws from China forced all online games companies to design in-game mechanisms for that. In Dragon Oath there is such a mechanism, the mobs limits: ** the 3500 killed mobs limit (at 3501 killed mob you will get another Bot Test no matter when the last one occurred, experience will be half and no more drops from mobs) ** the 5000 killed mobs limit (at 5001 killed mob you will get another Bot Test no matter when the last one occurred, no more experience and no more drops from mobs) ** after the limit, the players can join very few in-game activities (by example guild quests - mobs still drop mobs quests items even after the limit) * usually is better to train or grind in teams than solo in high density mobs areas, but it depending on the strength of own character and of the team * best experience gathering maps (also with high density mobs): Yan Tomb F1 to F9, Dungeon of Qin Emperor B1 to B4, Flame Valley, Ancient Maze, Taklaman Desert, Fergana Hill, Mt. Kunlun, Kunlun Land, Sanctity Grassland, Flame Palace. Other good places to grind for experience and materials are: Silver Snowfield, Pirate Cave (cave from South Sea), Snow Lake (cave from Azure Pit), Snow Wolf Lake (cave from Yellow Dragon Mansion). Usually any cave, no matter of mobs level, has a higher mobs density than common maps * the game is more equipment based than skills based, so focus on crafted equipment. If from any reasons you decide to use temporally set equipment, try to use full sets, because best set bonuses are the last ones. Still try to not ignore to level class skills, its have their own importance * gems have a huge importance too. Some of them are underrated (by example Onyx for Lotus Order class), others are overrated (like Bloodstone - in fact it is almost an useless gem) * when you decide to upgrade the level of socketed gems, remember that a higher level gem is not necessary better, by example 1 lvl 4 Ruby is far less than 5 x lvl 3 Rubies from which the lvl4 gem was made: 5 x lvl3 Rubies = 5 x 37 Sta = 185 Sta, while 1 lvl4 Ruby gives only 76 ... Sta. Even 2 x lvl4 gems brings less benefits than 5 lvl3 gems. Upgrade gradually the level of your gems, so your character's attributes won't be affected * even Amber / Tigereye (improves Physical Attack) and Sapphire / Opal (improves Spiritual Attack) seem to have identical benefits, it depend on each class which one is best to add in equipment: Tigereye and Opal add a fixed value to attack no matter of class, while Amber and Sapphire even add a fixed value to Str and Int attributes, different classes gain different benefits from these points * don't repair equipment until the durability falls down under 15 or even 10, the repair failure rate is lower in this case * reset times: ** server general reset: daily at 0:00 AM Server Time ** guild 50 quests loop: daily at 09:00 AM Server Time ** weekly 2 x experience: Sundays at 8:00 AM Server Time * relationship and moral points don't increase if you play the main and an alt character on the same PC About success rates * all success rates (of crafting, adding sockets, savvying, equipment enchantment and so on), including all drop rates are globally set, not per character. So basically, more active players there are in server, more chances of success * being globally set, a player may encounter a long loop of failures (by example, 10 or more failures in a row in adding the 3rd socket slot at a rate of 50% as the NPC says). A 50% success rate doesn't means exactly 1 success from 2 tries, it means that for all players who try to open 3rd socket the global rate is 50%. In the case of more than 3-4 failures in a row the best to do is to stop trying until next day. Check Probability Theory - Coin Toss Computer Simulation for more info * all rates can be modified by the developers, without any notice, by increasing / decreasing them or by adding extra items as drops * nowadays, all rates are generally saw by the players as being very low About life skills * even its are a huge time and resources consuming, its are very important, so try to not neglect to improve them constantly. Its are not only the main source for a strong character building, but also a good source for gold and token items * even some players seem to have more luck in crafting than others, there is no "best time for crafting" or any other tricks - the only rule to craft high valuable items is to keep trying and never give up * as it was designed, usually Making, Decorating and Refining life skills produce better equipment than Casting, Crafting and Sewing, but that's not a general rule * currently, the lowest success rate have hats, armors and necklaces For the new players The worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself. If you're the type that gets mad or frustrated, you are going to make mistakes or simply try too hard. Take a break and remember as real as it looks, it is just a game. Once you get that down and practice the other tips and advices found in this wiki, you will see your skills improve but it will take time. The guy or girl who sits there online kicking everyone's butt did not learn all those fancy moves at once. All those awesome items and pets of them took time and resources (including real money), but if you practice, you too can pull off those fancy moves. Just give yourself the chance to learn the game! * choose carefully a good master, some friends and a good peaceful guild at the beginning * read as much as you can about the game and the in-game systems, this will help you to build correctly your character and also to not waste your time and resources * high valuable equipment, full enhanced and with full level 4/5 gems, also very strong pets - this is currently the minimal recommendation for a waring way - and this means also you will need to spend some real money too for tokens purchases. If you're not sure you can accomplish it, then better choose a peaceful way in the game * it doesn't matter how strong you think you will become, always remember that the real power is not to PK someone who you can PK, the real power is to choose to not PK someone even you are able to do that * try to set for yourself a daily game-play schedule based on events list, then establish some goals or objectives per level and try to accomplish them. At low levels any event is good for gathering experience * do all level quests, even it's are time consuming its bring enough gold and experience for low level necessities * upgrade first the class disciplines books which open new skills, after all class skills are available, try to keep all books higher than the character's level. Anyway, some events require a certain level of first 6 books and the same books must be at a certain level to can level up the character ** level 80 to can level up the character to 90 ** level 90 to can level up the character to 100 ** level 100 to can level up the character to 110 * a good resource of Ivory (bound gold) is to catch fireflies (no special skill requires) in Dark West Lake (entrance from West Lake). Its spawn 2 hours after first fireflies of the previous spawn were catch. A full gathering brings around 30 ivory / spawn. Ivory is useful especially for paying the upgrade of class skills or to buy lvl80 class mounts * daily and weekly wage quests are the only resources for Bound Tokens, you will need a huge amount of them later * cheap level 1 gems can be found at some wild NPCs (Crocodile Island, South RainForest ..., Yellow Dragon Mansion) - restocking time is at every 2 odd hours, between minutes 7 - 11 * gathering plans and designs: ** for Moral points: in Su Zhou at ... (restocking at 25 min after previous restock) ** low cost level 4 - 6: Werewolf Hill, West Liao, Crocodile Island - restocking time is at every 2 odd hours, between minutes 7 - 11 ** low cost level 7 and higher: in Luo Yang at ... (restocking time is at every 2 odd hours, between minutes 7 - 11) ** mobs from Yan Tombs F1 - F9 drop them also * the boss from Treasure Cave C5 drops a special item (Experience Card) that gives you some useful free items by level - it spawns currently at every hour